"Nothing but the rain"
You know how it goes. You’re flying along over the Netherlands and then BOOM, there’s a lightning storm in front of you. Fortunately for me I was already planning on landing before the storm but I don’t recall seeing lightning before in X-Plane.
You might need to click on the picture to embiggen it and then be able to see the lightning forks.
I have and have not wanted a PlayStation Portal since I saw they were released. There was a period of time that I had a notification from a stock checking site to try and buy one but I was always too late to the party. I nearly managed to order one from Currys but then the order got cancelled as they had run out of stock. So, I gave up on stock checking sites and just thought I’d be ok without one.
So, I had settled myself to not owning a Portal, I can always use remote play on my iPhone if I wanted to even though I really hate using screens as controllers. Then, one day, EE sent me a text message saying they were selling Portals in their shop. Even though I had mentally settled on not owning one, I somehow went through the entire order process and ended up having a Portal delivered to my home.
The above image is a poor photograph because you can’t see the main features of the Portal which would be the controller part of it. But you can see that I am logged into Fortnite. I have found that the Portal works really well on my home network. I haven’t tested it fully on another Wi-Fi network yet, but I am going to do so this weekend. So far it seems a great little device, as long as you have connectivity. If you don’t then it’s just a lump of plastic and electronics.
One of my main methods of connecting to my PS5 will be via my phone’s hotspot. I figured that I pay for quite a bit of data so I might as well start to use the allocation. However, when I first tried to connect to my iPhone the Portal said it couldn’t connect. I tried again and I still got an error message. I spent a little while using Google and I found a number of pages where they said it was not possible as iPhone doesn’t support the particular NATs or whatever. I was somewhat upset at this.
Then, through a random Reddit post I saw that someone had connected to an iPhone using manual settings in the Portal and so I tried that. It worked!!! I now have the best of all worlds. I am a happy chappy.
The Commodore 64 – I know it’s not a console but it was used for “educational purposes” [gaming].
Public Domain, Link
The Sega Megadrive – bought in second year of university.
Public Domain, Link
The Sony PlayStation – Used to play Gran Turismo on my Landlord’s PS. Got my own eventually.
Public Domain, Link
The Sony PlayStation 2 – installed a network card, played Navy Seals online and hated it.
Public Domain, Link
The Sony PlayStation 3 – bought from an airport. The original had multi memory card readers and Super Audio CD capabilities. It died and I got a newer one which had none of those capabilities. It now lives at work.
Public Domain, Link
The Sony PlayStation 4 – This lives on the wall in the dining room. LAN connected rather than WiFi, obviously.
Public Domain, Link
The Sony PlayStation 5 – this takes pride of place in the lounge. Wired connections obviously and HDMI through 7.2 amp into 4K HDR television.
Public Domain Link
Honourable mention goes to the Sega Saturn which I hired for a weekend in around 1994/5, possibly hired from Blockbuster.
Public Domain, Link
I’ve spent some time trying to work through the new Gran Turismo Licences that came in a recent update. Sometimes these are frustrating because I’m sure the demonstration video car has more front end grip than I do. I had a similar feeling when I looked at the Lewis Hamilton replays in a previous challenge. Anyway, assuming my times are distributed with a mean close to the Gold time I will eventually get Gold because of natural variation. Curiously if I’m a second behind I know there’s lots of room for improvement and I don’t feel despondent but if I’m close to the Gold time I get most frustrated because I’m continually close but not great. I can’t remember which particular trial I’m taking in the picture but I was very glad to get Gold.
I’m really not a fan of “loot boxes” in computer games. The latest version of Gran Turismo has a kinda-loot box but at least it’s not one you can use real money to get. The task is to complete just over 26 miles of driving within the game within a day. If you manage that you then get a “random” prize. The prizes go from around 5000 in-game credits to cars and even a million in-game credits [I think]. Anyway, plenty of people moan about the consistency of “winning” the 5000 credits. As a counter argument this is what happened to me on consecutive days:
I guess it’s not all bad.
Nope, this communication isn’t about how I would like the government to make changes to improve peoples’ lives. I almost wish it was but then I don’t think I have the space for all the things I think government should be doing. If you know me then you also know I’m a raging lefty who is all for social progress, self determination and people paying taxes. This communication is about Minecraft and the current project.
The above picture shows the very first steps of this project. I think you can see a staircase and that’s about it. This was in September and I’ve been messing around since then. Here is what the mountain looks like at the moment:
A lot of the work that has gone on is actually hidden from view and so I’m hoping I might get a short video together to show the stupid amount of mining I have actually completed. At the top of the picture is a mob-spawner that’s working quite well. Towards the bottom of the picture there is a slice of mountain that I have cut out and I am planning to cut out more slices. I’m not sure what it is going to look like but I’m having fun. I am also thinking of surrounding each slice with some precious blocks to make them stand out.
Yesterday I spent time trying to find an End Portal and although I’ve found a stronghold I haven’t yet managed to locate the portal inside that and I’ve found that quite frustrating. I guess I need to learn about stongholds and their generation. Anyway, the Minecraft world is far nicer that the actual real world, even with mobs that try and kill you.
I was looking through this site to see if there were any current pictures of the Flight Sim setup and I couldn’t find any. So this communication aims to correct for that.
In this picture you can see the PC, desk, three monitors, and the HOTAS bits and pieces. In this flight I had just landed at Stansted in the fog, which was interesting! Maybe I need to get some rudder pedals, but then I also fancy getting the Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS bundle so I’m not sure what to do. I know! I’ll set myself a target of things to learn before I reward myself with these luxury items.
What started as a bit of a “around the coast” trip to look at the scenery ended up being an around the world trip in short hops. I started this sometime in 2021 with a trip from Manchester Airport to RAF Valley, just to see what it would be like. Then I continued around the coastlines of all seven continents. See this communication for the start of the list. All airports landed at are listed in these communications:
So now we have the final list of airports. From somewhere in the Gulf Of Mexico to Manchester.
And there we have it. All the airports visited as part of this around the world flight. It’s taken around two years but I feel a sense of achievement. The next thing for me to do is to learn how to use navigation aids rather than VFR. That’s my plan for the next set of flight sim activities.
As part of my around-the-world tour I have made it to Florida. Currently, the state is suffering from what we would call – WLS – or wanker leader syndrome. It’s a shame really. I really liked my time there at the Kennedy Space Center, but I don’t think I’d want to visit now. Other places with more liberal laws can have my money.
I’m flying around the world in my Flight Sim – X-Plane. There are communications giving my progress, but I’m in the Caribbean at the moment heading to that hellscape that is Florida. I think my last stop before USA [again] is Havana. But, and this is the most important bit, I landed at Guantanamo Bay air station from the Turks and Caicos. I was in a little private jet and somehow it seemed fitting to land there and then depart quite quickly. I left my cargo there to be abused of process and tortured.
The things the “west” have done over the last thirty years distress me immensely. I have a suspicion that if I looked at most of history I would find that it’s all rather terrible and the “west” has pretty much fucked everything up. Anyway, onto Florida where the current governor has banned medical help for women and trans people because – fuck you. I don’t understand people full of hate.
You know what? I shouldn’t be ashamed of enjoying this game. I think I’d thought poorly about it in the past but I needed to check my privilege. I shouldn’t be gatekeeping what proper gaming is or looks like. It’s not my place to do that. If you enjoy playing your games then go ahead and enjoy it. I’ve been playing Fortnite and I’m enjoying it. I’m also reasonably ok at it. I know my weak points and I’m going to work on those over the next few weeks to try and get a little better.
So, a week ago or so Epic were offering the chance to gain extra XP by playing some challenges within a website. I’m not sure what their motivation was but I enjoyed it. I had to get 25 eliminations in a day to get the XP. Somehow I got 44!
The next part of this is to get some colleagues from work and create a super-team for smashing all the competitions. This might take some time but would be so worth it.
I’m still playing Gran Turismo occasionally. I’m slowly working through the challenges and completing racing tasks. It’s still great fun and a really nice way to shut the brain off.
I have currently driven a total of 8395.10 miles. I think my favourite statistic is that my average fuel consumption is 35 litres per 100km driven. The real car I drive can do 2 litres per 100km. I suspect that in the future, driving virtual cars will be the only way to enjoy the noise and feel of these vehicles. They should be banned already. Oh, by the way, electric cars aren’t the answer either – they won’t save the planet, they will only save the car industry.
Early on in this pandemic that is fucking the world I started playing Minecraft pretty much so I could engage in conversations with my kids and understand a little about the world they were obsessed with. I still don’t know everything but I know what I like and enjoy and so I’ve been building. It gave me purpose. I hated it at times, having to head off to the farm to get wool or go and get supplies so I can make concrete. I considered making a squid farm at one point, but just changed my design to have less black concrete. I quite liked the process of building a thing and then changing my mind about what I wanted to to look like or how to complete a particular section. I would often think about what to do while I was running or working.
I haven’t done everything I want. There are things I kept thinking about that I could make to increase the complexity of the build and make it look even better. I wanted exhaust tubes to be built heading from the base of the launchpad up to the ground level around 100 blocks away and these would have smoke constantly pouring out of them to look as though the rocket was taking off. I wanted to build a launch control centre like the one at Kennedy for the Apollo launches but I only have so much time and there are other things I like doing. I’m not a complete obsessive!
Once I had done enough – I don’t think I should say finished – I tried to figure out the best way to save this build for posterity. I have the world save files backed up and stored on a NAS and in the cloud. But I wanted to be able to show this off I guess so I looked into making a YouTube walkthrough. Now, I have some rules about this website and I decided I should have rules about the videos. I wasn’t going to feature my ugly face, but I decided I would in the end. I have an opening title card – ha ha, created in MS Paint – yes it looks cheap but these are my first videos. Not sure what I’ll do next. I’ve been really impressed with the video recording software and I found it very intuitive. So, here is the first in the series, Episode 1 of Megaship 3000.
It turns out I can talk much better if I have wine and it amuses me how stilted and staccato my opening words are. I think I relax a little once I get going and know what to talk about. Many, many thanks to Penguin for giving me feedback on the first few attempts at a video and I would also like to thank the penguin chicks for their advice which, as seasoned YouTube watchers, was really good. I guess it’s now time to publicise my efforts and think about a release schedule! There are eight episodes in all and I guess, one day, I might do this again.
So, as time goes I progress on my Minecraft Megabuild. Even as I continue to build I keep coming up with ideas for new things and extensions but I have decided that once I’ve completed the inside and possibly adjusted the route of the underground railway approaching the build I will stop. I’d love to make a launch control like the one at Kennedy Space Centre but maybe another time. I need to start playing on a new world. This server is now known as Season Two and Season Three has already started. I expect another couple of weeks of tidying up this thing and then I will start recording the tours. I’m keep planning how this is going to work. I’ve practised recording a video with audio and it went ok. I just need to sit down and plan the sections. I think I’m going to make each video around five minutes long covering a single aspect of the build each time.
I’m currently fitting all the control systems to the rocket. Really this is just a bunch of switches and toggles in places that look right. I’m also moving all the material I excavated from the hole into rocket storage. I guess my plan is to have this thing be able to blast off and then build a new world somewhere. I’ve got my cabin sorted and I’m pleased with the view from there.
I’m not sure how much time I’ve spent on this. It’s been around an hour a day for quite a while. I’ve been spending time collecting the resources as all this has been made in survival game mode.
I’m waiting on a new camera and then some more time just to sweeten off this model and then it’ll be record time. I’m looking forward, it’ll be a new skill and one that I’ve kinda tried before but the result was terrible!
Here you can see my beach house, tree farm, beach bar and monolith. There’s also a nether-portal and if you know what you are looking for you can see Beach Station. Anyway, just wait for the videos!
This most definitely is not a Harry Beck type map but maybe I should produce one. This map goes with the previous communication about the Minecraft world that I inhabit and the underground system that I made. Apparently we are now working on an infinity room in the server, whatever that is. I hope I have enough RAM to cope with that!
This map shows an aerial view of the meadow area of the server world. The straight lines represent different sections of the underground system.
Do these colours match the colours of the lights in each tunnel? Of course they do! Below is an overview of most of the world so far. We have discovered some deserts and a cold region but have yet to find a jungle biome which is a little annoying.
It’s been way too long for one of these communications so here’s a Star Wars miniature that was made recently in the May festival of Lego.
Here’s a win. Me racing my Porsche around Brands Hatch. Started in 5th and ended in first. I was pretty happy. This also means I don’t have the child rapist cabal that is the catholic church as my last communication.
Here’s another couple of Lego models for me to catalogue. These came attached to one of those magazines that cost around GBP5. But I think the models look quite cool.
It’s probable that the U-Wing is part of the rebellion against the established government of the galaxy. If we use a neo-con view of the world then we would probably think they are rebel scum, all those terrible people fighting for the rights of everyone. Could it be that they are the bad side?
This is a Lego beach buggy. It’s pretty rad and I think you should chuck some Beach Boys on a music player somewhere.
In the most recent season of Lego we have the latest addition to the family:
It’s a thing from a movie.